I'm thinking about giving up with Jenny Craig. I'm trying to do mainenance but cannot figure out exchanges with regular food. Seems to me, that Jenny doesn't want to help us out here, because they want our money and to buy there food for life.
I'm on mainenance and going to give up now, because it's way to hard and I don't have the time to sit down and figure this out for every single meal.

Hello friend;

I am so sorry to hear that you are losing confidence in your ability to do the maintenance successfully. I am sure that you can and will succeed at maintenace, it's just somewhere along the way your motivation has changed.

I've been a member with Jenny Craig for two years now as an employee and as a weightloss success. I can assure you it's not easy. There are so many days I do wonder - even at maintenance- how I am supposed to balance out my day with foods, etc. But remember that it's not necessarily about learning the maintenance exchanges or how many foods go where. True it is a learning process, but not everything is measured or counted. You also learn to trust your visual cues and understand what a healthy portion size is and how to recognize real hunger when it approaches and so forth. Even I have struggled with it at times and I am with the company and assist my clients in getting started or recognizing potential pitfalls/downslides.

Before you give up all together, think over a few things in your mind:
Why did you want to start the program in the first place? Was it just to lose the weight? What was it about the maintenance portion of the program that appealed to you more than the other special that was advertised at the time? How does the support of learning about the Jenny Craig methods for maintaining weight help you? How do you feel it doesn't support you? How confident did you feel on making your own choices and decisions for menus upon reaching your halfway goal? Was it just that the simplicity of the program appealed in helping you to get started, or did you find something else more substantial in assisting you along the way?

As our lifestyles and lives move forward, we evolve. All of our individual eating habits evolve over time. There is the saying "You can't teach an old dog new tricks". Not referring to you as one, but it's the idea that old habits die hard and new habits are harder to create. Just as we do during the program. it can be beneficial to try setting new habits through short term goals with our programs. So this month, what could a new habit be that you try to start?

Also remember that it is a personnalized program: meaning that as you change your way of life, the program is meant to evolve with you. The counting and so forth should have been encouraged more starting at halfway not right at maintenance. That's hard enough to understand. So why not try to understand something new to evolve your program each month to fit you? It could be a new activity, new recipes, new methods of rewarding yourself...there are many different ways that you could do that.

Of course again it is your program. so if you feel that leaving the program for a time will support you better to clear your head or try something new, no one I am aware of will judge you. And with the maintenance program, you are always welcome back without having to feel like you have to pay all over again.

I hope this gives you some comfort and regardless of your decision, I wish you sincerely all the best.